Lessons from the Stylish: Amy Smilovic, founder of Tibi

Amy Smilovic at home: "Dressing up is such a pleasure" Photo: DAN CALLISTER

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, so Thomas Hardy tells us, spoke two languages: the Queen's English and her native Dorset dialect. Amy Smilovic, designer and founder of the successful Tibi label, is also bilingual: she speaks Fashion as well as being fluent in School Mom.

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It's not always easy slipping between the two vernaculars. What looks good in an office of twentysomething fashion assistants in SoHo can look bemusing at the school gates in Connecticut. But Smilovic is a wry and thoughtful dresser who specialises in coming at fashion from unexpected angles. Not, she concedes, that she always gets it spot on. "I came down to breakfast the other day and one of my sons said, 'Mom, you will NOT get good marks on that outfit.'"

Being of an analytical frame of mind, she has broken down the School Mom genre into marketable subcategories. There is Cool School Mom, who, according to Smilovic, secretly yearns to be a Scandi Mom. She's the one who appreciates Smilovic's leather jogging pants (every wardrobe should have a pair, she thinks) and high-top trainers. There is Russki Mom with her boob job and immaculate hair, who presents an irresistible challenge to Smilovic's commercial spirit, since her label is neither boob-job nor immaculate-hair orientated. Yet Smilovic is selling Tibi's understated tops to Russki Mom, "which she wears with an ultra-push-up bra".

Finally there is old Old Money Mom. ''She's a lost cause, she will never, ever part from her Lily Pulitzer, which she likes to buy from outlets. Her idea of dressing up is to fling a pashmina over everything."

Smilovic wouldn't sling a pashmina over anything, apart, possibly, from her dog basket. "Why would you wear something that ages you 20 years when you can slip a fabulously chic tuxedo over anything, including a ball dress?"

When Smilovic talks about "dressing up" she's referring to the downtown version, which revolves around deceptively simple "basics" in luxurious fabrics. If she has friends over for dinner to her fabulous, glossy-magazine-ready house, she'll wear those leather jogging pants, or maybe silk ones, in grey, with a cropped tunic top and velvet smoking slippers. "You don't want to look too trussed up, but you want to make an effort."

If she needs to do power-glamour in the office, she'll switch to a pencil skirt and oversized sweater. ''But black tights can look dowdy so I go bare-legged as long as I can hold out, and wear cashmere ankle socks inside block-heeled ankle or knee-boots. But they have to be quite a wide fit up the calf - off the skin. A skinny boot with a skinny skirt looks too tarty."

Smilovic, for all her specificity, doesn't take fashion too seriously. Laughing, she confesses that on the flight over from New York to London, a little LuluLemon may have crept into her attire. She loathes this US brand, originally conceived as yoga wear, "where it should stay. But American women wear it everywhere. It's killing fashion. I find it very dispiriting when you go to a restaurant full of women in gymwear."

Don't even talk to her about American men. "They're the worst-dressed humans on the planet, unless they're gay. It really bums me out. Dressing up can be such a pleasure."

Smilovic's love of clothes stems from her childhood in Georgia, where she grew up on St Simons Island. "Everyone dressed rather formally then - never a day passed in the South without someone mentioning the Civil War." Being the tree-climbing type, Smilovic avoided the frou-frou. "But I always matched my hair-bow to my track pants," she winces. "My line in the sand was not matching my lipstick."

Her tomboy streak (or androgyny, as fashionistas prefer to call it) infuses Tibi's sleek, breezy pieces. But at the start, when she launched the label with a friend while they were both living in Hong Kong, it was with a handful of dress styles.

She didn't have any fashion business experience, knew very little about her new friend "but she was a DuPont, how bad could it be?" Besides, Smilovic had majored in business at college, and minored in art, which might just be the perfect credentials for a modern designer. It was 1997 and the craze for niche labels selling Sixties-inspired cotton dresses was simmering nicely.

Smilovic had four styles, which she had commissioned at $9 apiece. She found her manufacturers in the telephone directory. A day later she was in business. By their third season things were on fire. Smilovic's artistic leanings had come to the fore and she'd produced a collection of skirts and dresses made from silk scarves. "Really gaudy, but it worked. The
New York Times
ran an entire page of them." Tibi received $600,000 (£365,000) of orders on the back of that. Describing the operation as a cottage industry is doing thatch a disservice. "We were so naive that when the store buyers asked what we were doing for the autumn season, I said, I don't do autumn…"

Somehow she convinced her mother, a school vice-principal back on St Simons, to help out. "One day she calls me and says, 'Amy, there's a juggernaut trying to back into the garage with 4,000 dresses.' She had to get all her teacher friends to help ship them to Neiman Marcus."

As the business took off, Smilovic and her co-founder parted amicably, which is when she switched from cute dresses to clean separates. "That was when I realised a business degree can be both a blessing and a curse, because I'd launched Tibi to fill a niche. But that niche wasn't me and one day I said to my husband, Frank, I know this can't be just about what Amy wants to wear, but if I'm going to do this it has to be from the heart."

Frank appears to be an exemplary pupil. In the early days of their marriage, aghast at how many shoes she bought, he tried to buy her some handmade shoes in London. "I said, 'Frank, why would I ever want shoes that last a lifetime when I spend my life looking for excuses to buy more?'" He got it.

Nowadays he works alongside her in the business, which employs 70 people and does about $90million (£54million) at retail - and growing. There are a lot of moms out there who'd like to look as cool as Amy.

Questions & Answers

What's your latest fashion toy?
Wide, thick cotton culottes. They have the ease of trousers but they look like a beautiful skirt. I'm wearing them with an easy T-shirt and block heels.

Any high street favourites?
Zara - but I also hate it. It's too good. I've had to ban my team from wearing it.

Biggest fashion myths?
That the perfect white shirt will solve all your problems. I was a waitress once. Believe me, a white shirt just gets people clicking their fingers at you.

Every wardrobe should have?
A tuxedo. Wear it with anything. Just please don't wear a pashmina draped over your shoulders.

Age issues?
Not really. For years I've told my sons I'm 42, but apart from that I'm comfortable.

Regrets?
A few. My main one is that I can't tan any more. After 45 something happens and when you sit in the sun you get age spots and go a dirty shade of beige. It's Fake Bake for me from now on.

Things that keep you awake?
Figuring out how to do body-con without looking vulgar. How to be feminine without going prissy or boho.

Your fashion weakness?
30 grey T-shirts. I get them from J Crew. They're just the right weight. And my huge Franck Muller watch that spends more time at the mender's than on my wrist. I love precious things that don't look precious: Delfina Delettrez's pieces are fun. My current crush is an above-the-knuckle ring.

Best fashion advice?
Keep to a monochrome-ish palette and you'll look chic. A faded black pant, navy sweater and a dark green scarf - that's what I mean by monochrome-ish.